The bagpipe-player in the centre dropped his melancholy eyes，filled with the reflections of the forests and the lakes，in profound inattention，while men were being exterminated around him，and seated on a drum，with his pibroch under his arm，played the Highland airs.
These Scotchmen died thinking of Ben Lothian，as did the Greeks recalling Argos.The sword of a cuirassier，which hewed down the bagpipes and the arm which bore it，put an end to the song by killing the singer.
The cuirassiers，relatively few in number，and still further diminished by the catastrophe of the ravine，had almost the whole English army against them，but they multiplied themselves so that each man of them was equal to ten.
Nevertheless，some Hanoverian battalions yielded.Wellington perceived it，and thought of his cavalry.
Had Napoleon at that same moment thought of his infantry，he would have won the battle.
This forgetfulness was his great and fatal mistake.
All at once，the cuirassiers，who had been the assailants，found themselves assailed.
The English cavalry was at their back.Before them two squares，behind them Somerset；Somerset meant fourteen hundred dragoons of the guard.
On the right，Somerset had Dornberg with the German light-horse，and on his left，Trip with the Belgian carabineers；the cuirassiers attacked on the flank and in front，before and in the rear，by infantry and cavalry，had to face all sides.
What mattered it to them？
They were a whirlwind.Their valor was something indescribable.
In addition to this，they had behind them the battery，which was still thundering.
It was necessary that it should be so，or they could never have been wounded in the back.
One of their cuirasses，pierced on the shoulder by a ball from a biscayan，[9]is in the collection of the Waterloo Museum.
[9]A heavy rifled gun.
For such Frenchmen nothing less than such Englishmen was needed.It was no longer a hand-to-hand conflict；it was a shadow，a fury，a dizzy transport of souls and courage，a hurricane of lightning swords.In an instant the fourteen hundred dragoon guards numbered only eight hundred.
Fuller，their lieutenant-colonel，fell dead.Ney rushed up with the lancers and Lefebvre-Desnouettes's light-horse.The plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean was captured，recaptured，captured again.The cuirassiers quitted the cavalry to return to the infantry；or，to put it more exactly，the whole of that formidable rout collared each other without releasing the other.
The squares still held firm.
There were a dozen assaults.
Ney had four horses killed under him.Half the cuirassiers remained on the plateau.
This conflict lasted two hours.
The English army was profoundly shaken.
There is no doubt that，had they not been enfeebled in their first shock by the disaster of the hollow road the cuirassiers would have overwhelmed the centre and decided the victory.
This extraordinary cavalry petrified Clinton，who had seen Talavera and Badajoz.
Wellington，three-quarters vanquished，admired heroically.
He said in an undertone，'Sublime！'
The cuirassiers annihilated seven squares out of thirteen，took or spiked sixty pieces of ordnance，and captured from the English regiments six flags，which three cuirassiers and three chasseurs of the Guard bore to the Emperor，in front of the farm of La Belle Alliance.
Wellington's situation had grown worse.
This strange battle was like a duel between two raging，wounded men，each of whom，still fighting and still resisting，is expending all his blood.
Which of the two will be the first to fall？
The conflict on the plateau continued.
What had become of the cuirassiers？
No one could have told.One thing is certain，that on the day after the battle，a cuirassier and his horse were found dead among the woodwork of the scales for vehicles at Mont-Saint-Jean，at the very point where the four roads from Nivelles，Genappe，La Hulpe，and Brussels meet and intersect each other.
This horseman had pierced the English lines.One of the men who picked up the body still lives at Mont-Saint-Jean.His name is Dehaze.
He was eighteen years old at that time.
Wellington felt that he was yielding.
The crisis was at hand.
The cuirassiers had not succeeded，since the centre was not broken through.
As every one was in possession of the plateau，no one held it，and in fact it remained，to a great extent，with the English.Wellington held the village and the culminating plain；Ney had only the crest and the slope.
They seemed rooted in that fatal soil on both sides.
But the weakening of the English seemed irremediable.The bleeding of that army was horrible.
Kempt，on the left wing，demanded reinforcements.
'There are none，'replied Wellington；'he must let himself be killed！'
Almost at that same moment，a singular coincidence which paints the exhaustion of the two armies，Ney demanded infantry from Napoleon，and Napoleon exclaimed，'Infantry！Where does he expect me to get it？
Does he think I can make it？'
Nevertheless，the English army was in the worse case of the two.The furious onsets of those great squadrons with cuirasses of iron and breasts of steel had ground the infantry to nothing.
A few men clustered round a flag marked the post of a regiment；such and such a battalion was commanded only by a captain or a lieutenant；Alten's division，already so roughly handled at La Haie-Sainte，was almost destroyed；the intrepid Belgians of Van Kluze's brigade strewed the rye-fields all along the Nivelles road；hardly anything was left of those Dutch grenadiers，who，intermingled with Spaniards in our ranks in 1811，fought against Wellington；and who，in 1815，rallied to the English standard，fought against Napoleon.The loss in officers was considerable.